Book excerpt: Get past all the hype about PHP and dig into the real power of this language. This book explores the most useful features of PHP and how they can speed up the web development process, and explains why the most commonly used PHP elements are often misused or misapplied. You'll learn which parts add strength to object-oriented programming, and how to use certain features to integrate your application with databases. Written by a longtime member of the PHP community, PHP: The Good Parts is ideal for new PHP programmers, as well as web developers switching from other languages. Become familiar with PHP's basic syntax, variables, and datatypes Learn how to integrate the language with web pages Understand how to use strings, arrays, and PHP's built-in functions Discover the advantages of using PHP as an object-oriented language Explore how PHP interacts with databases, such as SQLite and MySQL Learn input- and output-handling best practices to prevent security breaches